Adva Mobile Corp., a provider of mobile fan clubs for music artists, has launched a mobile marketing service.

Adva Mobile provides a software service for music artists to create closer relations with their fans on their mobile phones. Adva's client list includes various Boston-area music artists, including McAlister Drive, Lagoon, Michael Bernier and Kings of Crisis.

"Music artists today have a Web presence -- MySpace -- but no way to reach out to their fans on their mobile phones," said Jack Kelly, founder/CEO of Adva Mobile, Wayland, MA. "Yet their fans are increasingly connecting over their personal, always with them, mobile phone.

"Adva Mobile provides a software service that enables music artists to create closer relations with their fans through mobile fan clubs -- free to the fan, free to the band," he said.

"The product strategy includes tools for text-message alerts, a mobile Internet presence, content fulfillment with music downloads and a sharing service through existing social communities."

Adva Mobile was founded by Jack Kelly and Amir Rozenberg in March 2008 and is privately funded.

Prior to its commercial release, Adva Mobile ran a private beta program that began in March 2008.

The service is free to consumers and has the potential to be a revenue-generator for the band.
There will be a mobile advertising component to the platform.

"Adva makes money whenever a music artist engages their fans on their mobile phones," Mr. Kelly said. "SMS text messages and artist mobile Web pages present relevant, targeted advertising.

"We also make money from ticket, merchandise and music sales commissions," he said.
Adva believes that existing, traditional channels are inadequate for the needs of bands and musicians.

"Music artists rely on the fan to find them on MySpace -- there's no way for the music artist to reach out pro-actively to the fan," Mr. Kelly said. "Email doesn't provide the immediacy or personal connection you get with your mobile phone.

"Adva Mobile services allow music artists to reach out to the fan in a personal way, building fan loyalty, concert attendance and merch and ticket sales," he said. "Social community sharing improves the band's exposure and reach, creating more fans and more revenue for the band."

Mobile commerce is a key aspect of the Adva Mobile fan club platform.

"Fans can purchase event tickets, music and merchandise from their mobile phones, either through Adva-created technology with Paypal or links to affiliate programs with Ticketmaster and iTunes," Mr. Kelly said.

Can mobile reinvigorate an industry?
Mobile phones offer the music industry an opportunity to grow revenue through full-track and ringtone downloads, ticket purchases and merchandise sales.

This growth depends on musicians' and labels' ability to engage consumers when and where they want to engage.

This starts at the consumers' point of discovery for artists and songs.

Mobile fan clubs using Adva Mobile's services present a gateway for bands to offer fans various kinds of content that are accessible from their mobile phone.

Fans today increasingly discover and share their experiences on their mobile phones.

Music artists use Adva Mobile's services to build fan clubs that provide fans a fun experience on their mobile phones.

The Adva platform includes mobile messaging and mobile-optimized Web sites that offer a variety of content and activities such as news, music and video downloads, gigs and tickets, recommendations about other artists and influences, contests, voting, raffles, backstage passes and text-to-screen.

For fans, Adva offers an experience with their favorite music artists on a device that is always with them and personal to them -- their mobile phone.

Fans join mobile fan clubs to receive weekly or monthly text alerts, linking them to artists' mobile Web pages, where they can download content, buy tickets to concerts, learn about the band and explore the bands' influences, recommendations and friends.

One feature lets fans share music and experiences with their friends through links to their existing social communities such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Adva also has a blog and a presence on YouTube.

The service will help advertisers target the 15-28 demographic on their mobile phones.

Adva Mobile enables precise targeting via deep fan profiles that are based on demographic information, including age, location, gender and ongoing collection of behavioral information.

New features of the 1.0 launch version of Adva Mobile include a new, intuitive self-service interface, automatic generation of individualized keyword for each music artist and a shared short code GETME.

For example, fans of McAlister Drive can text keyword mcalister to short code GETME, or 43863.

Adva also has the short code 70734.

"Excited and loyal fans are key to our success as musicians," said Christoph Krey, lead singer of McAlister Drive, in a written statement. "Adva Mobile's new mobile fan club enables us to be proactive in developing personalized relations with our fans.

"They can get alerts from us, visit our mobile pages, download music to their phones and tell their friends about us," he said. "In the few weeks we've been using it, both ourselves and our fans already see value in it."

Adva Mobile also features automatic generation of mobile Web pages from artists' MySpace profiles; fully automated campaign scheduling and messaging service; and a search and recommendation service for fans.

"The independent music business needs effective tools to promote shows to the crowd proactively," said Mark Kaye, a promoter for HearNowLive Productions, in a written statement. "Fans need new ways to discover and follow artists they like.

"Adva Mobile's fan club service gives me new ways to promote shows for the music artists and venues I deal with," he said. "Keeping in touch with fans helps promote ticket sales."